Jinx On The Divide by Elizabeth Kay Read Free Book Online Page B

the ones her mother said sounded like waggle-ears in pain.
    There was also a fly-in restaurant with a top-notch reputation, some spectacular scenery, and some seriously weird wildlife. It was about time she saw some of the world. Her brother, Stonetalon, flew all over the place. She'd show him.
    She found it quite difficult to get to sleep that night, although perhaps it was the fact that she'd eaten a little too much of the house carcass and drunk three whole buckets of fertle juice.
    ***
    61
    "Fertle fruit can lose its appeal, can't it?" said Felix, wiping the scarlet juice from his chin. He and Betony were having breakfast in the main room of the lamp; it bore a remarkable likeness to supper the night before.
    Betony nodded. "And you can't eat more than a couple of those custardy vamolins; they're too rich." Then she said, "Oh, hang on a minute. What about that cake your mother made?"
    The cake was a little beat-up, but it still tasted wonderful and reminded Felix of home. It was a lot more filling than fruit, and they ate half of it between them.
    The brandee looked up from the book he was reading. It was a leatherbound autobiography, written by another brandee, called Getting on My Wick -- Two Hundred Years of Solitude. "I think I may spend the rest of the day as a gas," he said. "I am consumed with jealousy by your consumption of that cake, for it is clearly a very pleasurable experience."
    "We're going to take one more look in the greenhouse," said Felix, "and if it's still the same size, we're giving up and assuming that Rhino got out. Any ideas about how he might have done it?"
    "Zizzipadoo," said the brandee, and he turned himself into vapor.
    "What did he mean?" asked Felix.
    "It was a joke," said Betony. "Zizzipadoo is the word children use when they're not old enough to do magic but they're pretending to. Come on, let's get on with it."
    62
    The greenhouse looked very different this morning. The little stone paths turned to gravel after a few yards, then to dirt, and then they more or less petered out. The vegetation seemed a lot thicker. Clusters of orchidlike flowers dangled from fleshy stalks; yellow speckled with cerise, lilac, and powder blue, pink dappled with white. Bulbous pitchers hung from the slender stems of pitcher plants, lime-green bodies splattered with purple blotches. Strange little trees spread their leaves into fan shapes, and curious spiny fruits clustered at the ends of the branches. It felt hotter than before, more humid.
    "It's going to be really difficult to find him in here, isn't it?" said Betony.
    "I'm not sure we're going to," said Felix. "I've been thinking. This greenhouse must be a bit like a balloon. Sometimes it's inflated, and other times it's quite small. But there's only one way in and one way out -- through the door."
    "So we might as well give up?"
    "Might as well."
    One of the little insects zipped past, giggling. "Why did the firefly bump into the tree?"
    "Because it wasn't very bright!" replied another, chortling. Felix smiled.
    "Look at that pitcher over there," said Betony. "It's absolutely enormous."
    Felix looked. It was so huge, it had to rest on the ground. "What do you think it eats?" he asked.
    63
    Betony looked shocked. "Eats? What do you mean?"
    "Pitcher plants are carnivorous. At least, they are in my world. Ours are much smaller than these; they catch flies, which drown and then get digested."
    Betony made a face, which quickly turned into an expression of horror as the implications hit home. "What do you think these eat, then?" she asked.
    "I don't know," said Felix. "Some pitcher plants have been known to eat frogs. Perhaps this one's big enough to tackle small birds?"
    "And not necessarily that small," said Betony, backing away. "I think you're right about Rhino not being here. Let's go."
    But Felix was overcome with curiosity. Although physics and chemistry were his favorite subjects in school, biology was a very close third. Insectivorous plants fascinated